“‘Knowledge is power,’” he answered, an even more tired cliché than my own.
One side of my mouth lifted. “‘All our knowledge merely helps us to die a more painful death—’”
“‘—than the animals that know nothing,’” he capped, shaking his head. “‘And a little knowledge is a dangerous thing.’”
We both smiled. We’d collected quotes as teens, dueled with them, and it’d become our own language, not unlike the silly, secret ones of very young children. It was another love we’d once shared; the English language, and the way the masters could turn a phrase, and the world on its ear, in only a few words.
“How’s your wife?” I blurted, then cursed silently, feeling myself color. I didn’t really know this Ben Traina. And we no longer belonged to one another. “Sorry. You don’t have to answer that.”
“No, it’s all right,” he said and, amazingly, slowly, smiled. “But you’d have to ask her new husband.”
I blushed even more. Ben cleared his throat and picked up a crystal paperweight, flipping it in his palm. “Saw the article on your family.”
I studied him for judgment or sarcasm but found none. I licked my lips slowly and watched him watching me. Interesting. “So you read how I’m a slacker with no ambition and few abilities or admirable goals?”
He scoffed as he put down the paperweight, then skirted the table between us to take me by the hand, and led me to the window that overlooked the glittering Las Vegas Strip. His palm was warm and dry, and my own looked dwarfed inside of it. Even as a boy he’d had great hands. “They should have interviewed me. I have my own theory about the ‘prodigal daughter of the Archer dynasty.’”
That quote stung. I withdrew my hand and turned on him. “Why? Because you know me so well?”
“I think I do.”
I folded my arms over my chest. “I can’t wait to hear this.”
“Okay.” Ben mimicked my pose, leaning on the glass wall, looking as though he were reclining against the night. “First, it’s your birthday. Twenty-five years old. Happy Birthday.”
He remembered. I glanced down at my watch so he couldn’t see the sudden moisture in my eyes. “You’re about twenty-four hours early, actually, but thank you.”
“You’re welcome. Second, you’re not aimless, merely restless. You battle between a fleeting need for security and a constant one for complete freedom. You can’t lie about who you are, and therefore you can’t feign interest in your father’s business, or imitate your sister’s social grace, regardless of how successful they are.”
He paused, brows raised, and I motioned for him to continue. In a quieter voice he added, “You think too much, and you’re haunted by things you can’t change. You have a strong sense of right and wrong, with little tolerance for the in-between, and zero patience for deception.”
“Anything else?” I said, a bit tightly.
“Just one. You’re a photographer, but not as a means of commerce or even as a form of communicating with the world. The lens is actually a barrier shielding you from the rest of us. It’s a way of distancing yourself from your subjects so you can study them. Or hunt them.”
“That’s a bunch of crap!”
Ben grinned. “You’re also quick-tempered.”
Hunt them, I thought, shaking my head, annoyed. It was the same wording I’d heard earlier that evening. We’ve been hunting you for a long time, Ajax had said. He’d been trying to scare me, of course, but now Ben was saying it as if I were the predator, like some sort of skulking vampire, on the lookout for O-positive. “You’re reading too much into it.”
“You’ve been out every night this week.”
“Wait,” I said, holding up my hand, but otherwise going very still. “You’ve been watching me?”
“You’re using yourself as bait, aren’t you?” he persisted, ignoring the question. “That’s why you go out alone, at night, in the most dangerous parts of town.”
I clenched my teeth together, hard. “I go out at night because it’s quiet, and because light and shadow are a photographer’s main tools.”
“You seem to be more in the shadows than the light.”
“So what?” I tried not to sound defensive, but it was hard.
“So, why?” he said. “Why spend your days training like you’re going into battle, and your nights on the streets seeking it?”
I know that’s what it looked like from afar, from the outside looking in, which was the only way Ben could possibly see it, but it was more than that. Not that I was going to explain it now. “Maybe I’m just dedicated to my craft,” I said, lifting my chin.
“You haven’t been taking your camera.”
I whirled away from him, turning as much from the understanding his face held as from the shame that my secret—what I thought was a secret—had been so easily found out. I rubbed my arms, trying to erase the chills that had shot along them. A part of me was thrilled; he’d kept up on me, hadn’t forgotten me, still cared. Another part was furious. How could I have not seen him? Part of the point of these nocturnal excursions was to look for men—a man—who were looking for me.
“Joanna?”
“I can’t believe you’ve been following me.” My voice cracked. I cleared my throat, but it felt scratchy and dry, like all my words would stick to its walls.
At least he had the grace to sound apologetic. “It was an accident the first time. I was on a stakeout and I just saw you. I trailed you to make sure you’d be safe, but it didn’t take long to realize you weren’t trying to be safe.” His voice loomed closer, just behind me. “Why, Jo-Jo?”
“I’ve just been feeling…restless lately,” I finally said, which was the truth, if only half of it. Most of the time I felt like I was being bitten by a thousand fire ants buried deep beneath my skin. Or like someone was stoking a fire in my soul. “I feel like something’s going to happen, but I won’t know what it is until it’s too late.”
Ben put his hands on my shoulders, which I wouldn’t have tolerated from anyone else, and turned me so I was facing him. “You’re looking for him, aren’t you? Tempting him. Testing him.”
I clenched my teeth so hard my jaw ached. It had been such a good cover too. Confirmed slacker. Lazy little rich girl. Token black sheep of the Archer dynasty, the one others could point to and say, “See? All the money in the world can’t buy you happiness.”
The writer of the Fortunes and Fates article hadn’t caught on. Neither had Ajax or any man I’d dated before him. Not even my family, or Asaf—who knew only that I slept badly—were aware of what I did, or why. Nobody had seen that it was all just a cover. Until now.
I shook my head. “I’m just taking pictures.”
“And if you happen to find him locked between the crosshairs of your lens?” Ben asked, watching me again with his cop eyes.
I didn’t have to ask whom he meant. I met his gaze as I’d met Ajax’s, unblinking. And just to see who this new Ben Traina was, I said, “I kill him.”
His answer was immediate. “Good. Any other long-term goals?”
That jerked a laugh from me. I was surprised my throat had even let it escape. More surprised at Ben for laughing with me. Where was the lecture? Where was the warning that should’ve followed? The PSA about the long arm of the law? Then again, I didn’t really need it. Despite my words, my actions were all defensive. But I think the real reason we both let it slide was because the “him” we were referring to was the one who’d ultimately driven us apart.
“Long-term goals?” I repeated, before shaking my head. “Just survival, Traina. I’m just trying to survive.”
Which wasn’t entirely true. I already had the survival thing down pat.
Ben turned back to the glass wall and looked out with a sigh over the city we both patrolled. I joined him, pressing my forehead against the cool glass, and let the lights below blur into a blinding stream of nothingness. We call it camera shake in photography; when the camera moves and the shutter is open long enough to cause an overall blur. The effect was mostly undesirable, except for times like this.